An integration toolkit enabling local governments to receive service
requests through social networks, mobile applications, and third-party
websites, is to be rolled out internationally following a successful
proof of concept in San Francisco.

The Open 311 Integration Toolkit, developed by ‘Government to
Citizen’ technology supplier Lagan in conjunction with the City of San
Francisco, will enable the company’s 200 local government customers
across the world to integrate and track requests from the multiple
channels into their processing systems.

The 311 programme, which is active in cities across the US, allows
citizens to contact local government to report – among other things –
potholes and graffiti. San Francisco’s 311 Service Centre opened three
years ago, and has since handled over 8 million calls. Thousands of
additional requests have also been submitted online.

Last year, the Californian city also enabled service requests to
be submitted through the micro-blogging website, Twitter. The Open 311
initiative has since enabled service requests processes to expand onto
additional platforms, including Facebook.

“Having our CRM vendor, Lagan, support the Open 311 initiative and
build it into their product, makes it possible for native integration
into Open 311, strengthening the Open Gov movement and bringing another
level of support and technical capability from the IT community into
the Open 311 discussion,” explained Chris Vein, CIO, City of San
Francisco.

“It is heartening to see the work that has been done with vendors
such as Lagan, when a CRM company sees the beauty and the potential of
what we've got going on here, signing the pledge and agreeing to change
product in order to meet the needs of the Open 311 API movement. It's
just a fantastic thing, so my hat's off to those very large companies
for doing that.”

An integration toolkit enabling local governments to receive service requests through social networks mobile applications and third-party websites is to be rolled out internationally following a successful proof of concept in San Francisco